Add Villager sweaters, with their distinctly Nordic patterns, plaid A-line skirts and pastel coats with fake fur collars and you get a sense of vintage fashion, circa 1960s and 1970s.

Items that once landed in Goodwill bins are now highly collectible treasures for those in the know. And the price tags on some pieces are higher now than they were 30 years ago.

On Saturday, dozens of college-age women flocked to the Urban Vintage Bazaar in the basement of Faunce Hall at Brown University. Nearly 20 vendors, mostly of them local, displayed their wares at the event, which was part pop-up store, part thrift shop.

Hannah Larson, a 22-year-old graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, was looking at a collection of vintage dishware in gold and avocado.

“I’m a textile designer,” she said. “I like this booth. It has a consistent theme. The colors are really bright.”

The booth’s owner, Christine Francis, 47, of Providence, said, “People either say, ‘Oh that was in my mother’s house,’ and they walk away or they say, ‘That was in my mother’s house’ and they love it.”

Biorn Maybury-Lewis, owner of a vintage shop in Boston, said the popularity of vintage ebbs and flows. Right now, he said, it’s experiencing an upswing.

“It’s the attention to quality, detail and durability,” he said. “This civilization is more of a throw-away culture. Everyone today is cost-conscious. We try to combine quality, style and beauty.”

Maybury-Lewis said some vintage stores hire pickers, who have a keen eye for what’s junk and what’s collectible. “People who know fashion are like professors,” he said. “It requires an encyclopedic knowledge.”

On Saturday, young women slipped knee-length pleated skirts over their narrow jeans. They snapped on fake gold clip-on earrings. They squeezed their shoulders into tufted wool coats that seemed designed for a 12-year-old.

In fact, many of the sweaters and coats were tiny, designed for women with girlish shoulders and wasp-sized waists.

The clothes ranged from gaudy polyester shirts from the ’70s to elegant cloth gloves from the Kennedy era, tiny leather change purses to silver charms shaped like planes, poodles and kittens.

There were cowboy boots and high heels, fashion brooches studded with fake jewels and elegant silver.

“It’s the idea of looking unique, of not wearing the same thing that everyone else is wearing” said Kim Hobby of Providence, who sells her clothes online.

“Everything has its own story,” said her 24-year-old daughter, Katie Hobby.

Nancy Van Niel, of Norton, Mass., the bazaar’s producer, thinks environmentally conscious young people are drawn to the notion of recycling.

“Kids like stuff from two generations ago,” she said. “They like stuff that is reminiscent of the peace movement and the ’60s. They like the vibe.”